Shittin’ on the dreck of a Bay

Director Michael Bay has said in interviews that his latest film “Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon” was his indirect apology to fans after the car crash that was “Transformers: Rise of the Fallen.”

He was quoted as saying of his latest: “I think our 3D works really well with the robots, the size, the girth, the weight of it… it’s spectacular.”

It seems Mr. Bay maybe confusing the words “spectacular” with “spectacle.”

‘Green Lantern’: Van Milder

Familiarity breeds contempt. Perhaps that is the rationale behind the critical drubbing “The Green Lantern,” has received upon release. Since 2000, there have been 36 films based on comic books (about six more were created exclusively for the screen). And “Latern” is the fourth of five to be released this year alone (hell, it’s not even the first “Green” superhero in 2011. That distinction goes to January’s god-awful “Green Hornet.” ).

Comics are an easy template for filmmakers, as they already have a tale, a storyboard and a built-in audience. They have the potential for great summer diversions (“Iron Man”) or even overall excellence (“The Dark Knight”). But, as the saying goes in one particular comic-to-film translation, “with great power comes great responsibility.” The missteps have been too numerous to count (“Catwoman,” “Ghost Rider” and “Jonah Hex” immediately rush to mind), and the core audience can be particularly unforgiving, so filmmakers should approach the genre with caution.

Nostalgia with flair (and flares)

For the non-geek filmgoer, the term “lens flare” will mean absolutely nothing. But they will know it when they see it.

It’s a photographic technique that causes light to flatten and streak out into a horizon-like pattern that fills the screen. Director (and producer of “Super 8”) Steven Spielberg used them religiously in his earlier films of the ’70s and ’80s, as seen in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “E.T.,” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” among others.

“Super 8’s” director, J.J. Abrams, relied on them in his “Star Trek” reboot, but it wasn’t until this latest film that I realized how nostalgic that little cinematic trick made me.

‘Priest’: Holy shit

Welcome, parishioners! Our reading today will be from the Book of Paul (Bettany).

It’s the story of a young, striking, classically trained actor with a promising future led into temptation by the draw of the monetary gain of crappy genre films. It’s a familiar tale, originally found in the Book of Julian (Sands).

Back in the early ‘80s, Sands was the overseas thinking-woman’s hunk. Starring in two back-to-back Oscar-winning films (“The Killing Fields” and “Room with a View”), Sands was rocketing skyward. But along came a little film called “Warlock,” that changed the direction of his career. From that point, he filled his resume with films like “Witch Hunt,” “Tale of the Vampire,” and “Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunter.”

‘Thor’: It’s hammer time!

I must admit, for all the Avengers amassing, “Thor” was the character for whom I held the most doubt.

For the uninitiated, Marvel Comics is toiling away at an epic comic concoction filled with its bankable superheroes. Over the past few years, it has been skillfully crafting the wildly diverse origin stories of these crusaders, starting in 2008 with “Iron Man,'” followed by “The Incredible Hulk,” and concluding this summer with “Thor” and “Captain America.” They will unite next summer on screen under the direction of geek overlord Joss Whedon (“Buffy, The Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly” and author of several comic book miniseries) in what is anticipated to be one of the biggest nerd-gasms the box office has seen in quite some time.

‘Thor’: It’s hammer time!

I must admit, for all the Avengers amassing, “Thor” was the character for whom I held the most doubt.

For the uninitiated, Marvel Comics is toiling away at an epic comic concoction filled with its bankable superheroes. Over the past few years, it has been skillfully crafting the wildly diverse origin stories of these crusaders, starting in 2008 with “Iron Man,'” followed by “The Incredible Hulk,” and concluding this summer with “Thor” and “Captain America.” They will unite next summer on screen under the direction of geek overlord Joss Whedon (“Buffy, The Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly” and author of several comic book miniseries) in what is anticipated to be one of the biggest nerd-gasms the box office has seen in quite some time.

Donnie Not-So-Darko

Director Duncan Jones deserves a lot of accolades for his attempt to resurrect old-school sci-fi.

In 2009’s “Moon,” Jones took a minimalist approach to the genre, with Sam Rockwell as a lunar miner facing a tough final mission before returning to family on Earth.

He was given a substantially bigger budget with “Source Code,” but still keeps the story scaled down, focusing on a specific eight-minute chunk of time which our hero must repeatedly relive in order to prevent a disaster. While it’s tempting to slap a “Bomb-Strapped-Groundhog’s Day” label on this thriller (which is not entirely unfair, mind you), Jones and writer Ben Ripley have coiled things tightly enough in “Code’s” runtime that it establishes its own identity before its final-act fizzle.

Spaced out

Let’s set things straight at the top of this review: though it stars the duo behind the much-loved genre send-ups of cops (“Hot Fuzz”) and zombies (“Shaun of the Dead”), do not expect the exact same payoff for their latest outing, “Paul.”

“Paul’s” leads Simon Pegg and Nick Frost still posesses the same chemistry that helped cement “Shaun” and “Fuzz” in the modern comedic pantheon, but the addition of director Greg Mattola alters the equation. It’s not for the better or worse, he just brings with him a style that changes the scope, cadance and rhythm.

Science fiction and road movies are the genres up for ribbing in “Paul.” Pegg and Frost are Graeme and Clive, two good-natured nerds who are living their dream of attending Comic-Con, followed by a chaser of RV travels through alien “hotspots” throughout the Midwest. It starts off rather timid, as though Pegg and Frost (who also wrote the screenplay), were almost too cautious to sting the very crowd who bestow geek love on the pair in real life.

But the numerous obvious gags soon fade away once “Paul’s” eponymous star takes center stage, and things really ramp up. Voiced by Seth Rogan (and, for all intents and purposes’ is almost every Rogan comedic character), Paul is the stoner’s “E.T.” He’s randy (not above “pressing ham” against the car window), ribald, and does not need a spacecraft to “blast off.” In “Shaun” and “Fuzz,” both leads were at odds with one another, but are best pals here, so when Paul arrives, he delivers some much-needed conflict. And Rogan, content with becoming the Cheech Marin of this generation does more than his share to help stir the pot.

The film takes all the obvious routes — from eluding inept-but-persistent Feds and covert officers (Bill Hader and Joe Truglio, the former, and Jason Bateman, the latter), Paul’s ability to regenerate and heal with touch, but it does so with such affection for its source material (“Close Encounters,” “E.T.,” “Alien” etc.), it makes these scenes fresh with a knowing wink and grin.

For lovers of the genre, there are countless in-jokes peppered throughout to satisfy, and director Mottola manages to ground the film, even considering the film’s outlandish subject matter. The director, who helmed the sweetly nostalgic “Adventureland,” brings the same delicate focus on friendship and makeshift family.

Perhaps because the film is more singularly focused (the Speilbergian Mythology of aliens is the one to which this film most closely aligns), many may fault “Paul” for not broadening its net as widely as Pegg and Frost did with “Shaun” and “Fuzz.” But all feels right in “Paul’s” universe, right down to its final scene that is as touching as it is amusing.
“Paul” is a head trip with spaceships, and is accessible enough to let everyone on board to enjoy the ride.

‘Cleveland Steamer:The Movie’

Dragons, zombie Nazis, faceless robots, orcs, towering samurai, scantily clad babes with guns: “Sucker Punch” is like a byproduct of some of fanboy focus group.

It’s as though director Zack Snyder simply plucked items off the shelves of better films and stuck them in his cart. And his script has all the depth and excitement of a shopping list.

Baby Doll (played by Emily Browning) suffers the loss of her mother, and, in an attempt to free her sister and herself from the grimy hands of her abusive stepfather, she gets shipped to an equally grimy mental institution where, presumably, only hot chicks are kept (Randall McMurphy would have had a field day).While there, she escapes into a fantasy world in which she and the other patients “empower” themselves as slutty dancers on a stage.

But Snyder, who has gained credibility with “300” and “Watchmen,” can’t let it rest there, for that would only give audiences some unholy union of “Burlesque” and “Girl, Interrupted.” So he dog piles on the aforementioned fantasy tangents into which the women retreat while “dancing,” making the whole thing into some mythical quest of epic proportions.

And by “mythical quest” I mean “catastrophic suck-fest.”

I know the whole film exists to satiate the pubescent heterosexual male moviegoers, but I was raised on the same diet of film, videogames and raging hormones, so I’m no stranger to the culture. But “Punch” never fully delivers on any of its tawdry teases, and its rallying cries of girl power are questionable at best.

Ms. Doll is joined by Blondie (played by Vanessa Hudgens), Amber (played by Jamie Chung), and sisters Sweet Pea (played by Abbie Cornish) and Rocket (played by Jena Malone). None of them is really distinguishable from the next, and all are equally expendable, as co-writer Snyder presents them. They must obtain several objects around the asylumn/strip club to enable their escape, all under the guidance of a supposed Zen master (played by Scott Glenn) who posesses all the wisdom of a stale fortune cookie.

Each object carries with it a mission to faraway lands, which just gives Snyder a chance to (over-)use his friend the green screen. None of the lands are terribly engaging, since Snyder is more focued on finding obscure angles at which he can place his camera and provide more slow-motion than a sports highlight reel. And since we know these worlds are only to be occupied for a short period of time, they carry zero opportunity for audience involvement.

In fact, since the whole premise is merely a dream (relax, “Inception” junkies, that film explored the parameters of dreams, not just have characters slip in and out of them), it’s difficult to invest fleeting attention to the action.

“Sucker Punch” is merely a lap dance of a movie, it flirts, teases and promises, only to vanish the moments after it has your money.

‘Cocoon’ with screenwriter Tom Benedek

Film: Cocoon (1985)
Rated: PG
Written by:
Tom Benedek (screenplay)
David Saperstein (story)
Directed by:
Ron Howard
Starring:
Don Ameche – Art
Wilford Brimley – Ben
Hume Cronyn – Joe
Jack Gilford – Bernie
Steve Gutenberg – Jack
Maureen Stapleton – Mary
Jessica Tandy – Alma
Brian Dennehy – Walter
Tahnee Welch -Kitty

By E Dagger from CruJonesSociety

Pre-screening memories: Cocoon is one of those weird movies that you suspect couldn’t get made today. It’s a science fiction movie featuring a group of senior citizens as its protagonists that deals with facing your own mortality vis-à-vis a spaceship that promises eternal life and health in exchange for never seeing your family or your home planet ever again. And it’s a comedy! Sounds like the total package of hilarity and a license to print money at the box office, am I right?

The truth is that this movie is indeed quite funny, and while most of the sexual innuendo eluded me as a child when I watched it the first time, there’s no denying the gravitational pull of the wily charms of Steve Guttenberg that made him an 80s icon. Since I wasn’t but 7 years old when I saw this movie the first time (my parents had taped it off Showtime), he was the character I could latch onto. Everyone else was too old, too stoic, or too much of a freaky, glowing apparition that made me uncomfortable. It was his warm smile and laidback attitude that grounded me in an otherwise strange movie that saw a woman take her skin off to become a floating, yellow ball of light, a bunch of senior citizens swim in a pool full of giant alien rocks, and a spaceship take a kid’s grandparents away forever. I had issues with this movie as a wee Dagger.

Post-screening memories: From 2002 to 2006 I consumed most of my movies the same way: Hungover watching TBS (or whatever channel) on a Sunday. Usually nothing came of this, but an innocent conversation between me and my writing partner (Lee S. Hart of CJS http://crujonessociety.com) started as a simple question – Would you get on the spaceship at the end forsaking life on earth for eternal health? – blossomed into a deep philosophical meditation about our views on life, religion, and eternity. Usually we were just waiting out last night’s Jagerbombs giggling at the hilariously racist antics of Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles.

But this time Cocoon spun us into territory we hadn’t anticipated as the movie represents (perhaps unintentionally so) a referendum on Judeo-Christian ideology and submits for discussion the question of eternity. The aliens are basically God, but not in any traditional theological form. So the question of whether or not to get on the ship presents additional problems in that by saying yes you’re basically shunning your Christian god and rolling the dice with these aliens. Even if you’re an atheist, your definition of forever has irrevocably changed because the aliens have proven life outside the confines of Earth.

We rolled around these topics and a ton more. When we finally founded our own website in 2008, it wasn’t until more than a year later that we revisited this topic and put it to our readers. Unfortunately no one responded, and we suspected it was because the depth with which you’d have to go to explain your answer either way delved a little more deeply than most people are comfortable with. Turns out, most people just didn’t really understand what we were asking.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise because it allowed Hart and myself to re-visit this movie and have this discussion one more time, http://crujonessociety.com/2009/04/27/monday-confessional-spaceship-ride/ which I encourage you to check to understand the depths to which I’ve thought about Cocoon before talking to our guest. I don’t think he knew what he was walking into when he agreed to do the podcast with us.

Cocoon works on several levels, and for that, it’s even better than I remember. It’s funny, it’s tender, it’s thought-provoking in unexpected ways, and it’s wholly unique. Rediscovering a movie in that way is a lot and realizing it’s way more than the weirdo alien movie you remember from your youth is a lot like finding a small piece of the eternal happiness the characters strive for when they get on the ship.

Download Natsukashi’s ‘Cocoon’ podcast

or splash down to our on-screen player right here:

Our featured guest: Tom Benedek

Benedek has written and rewritten screenplays for Robert Zemeckis, Lawrence Kasdan, Lili Fini Zanuck & Richard Zanuck, David Brown, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Sydney Pollack, Richard Rush, Harold Ramis, Lauren Schuler Donner & Richard Donner, Ray Stark, Brian Grazer, Working Title, Jersey Film, Chris Blackwell and many others. He wrote the screenplays for Cocoon, Free Willy and other films. He is a member of Writers Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  He also teaches screenwriting at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor where he is a James Gindin Visiting Artist.

Benedek is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where he received a Bachelors Degree with Individual Concentration in Film. He studied film at L’Institut de Formation Cinematographique in Paris and is a graduate of the Director’s Program at the American Film Institute.

A photographer and sculptor, Benedek has exhibited at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica and elsewhere. Take a look at his work at tombenedek.com